We recently explored the benefits to human service and non profit agencies to establish a telecommuting option with their employees. These articles covered setting up a telecommuting arrangement, establishing security and ensuring proper employee motivation among other topics. The popularity of teleworking has not frown at the rate which was projected over the last several years. Experts have attempted to comprehend the relative slowness of companies establishing tele-work arrangements and the challenges which are faced. It appears that the more technologically mobile our society becomes, the more that some people struggle to establish health work/life boundaries. The average worker spends up to four additional (often unpaid) hours per week checking their work email, responding to texts, emails or phone calls about work or doing outside projects. Many people don’t realize the slow infiltration of work into their personal time because they simply add checking the work email or responding to texts into their routine and this time is not seen as a sizable chunk of their day. For these people who do not want their work time to interfere into their home time, no matter how convincing an argument pro teleworking becomes, they will resist the suggestion. In order for a worker to be successful in a telecommuting arrangement, they need to establish good boundaries. For many, this involves settling strict rules for themselves, their co-workers and their families on expected behaviors, hours which are on the clack as well as off the clock, and proper procedures. Many employees whose jobs are not eligible for teleworking arrangements may resent their teleworking co-workers and assume that they are not working at all. This may or may not be the case, and there are productive spurts for workers who work in an office as well as those who work at home. Many teleworkers find that they begin to resent the assumption that they are not working or that they are kept out of the loop for decisions. This can be avoided by frequent staff meetings, collaborative tools such as Google Drive for team projects and using real time human services software programs which can record information for each relevant person to see. If these program work on any internet device and show changes to cases in real time, all the better. There is no magic formula for telecommuting in any field, but there are many benefits that can come by exploring the option for your company. Either way, it is important to know what may come your way when beginning a teleworking program.
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